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Sharp MZ series setup issues


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Hey there!
Has anyone found a good way to import Sharp MZ family games into LB?
MAME appears to be the most workable option, but its cores for later systems in the series (mainly MZ-2500 and MZ-2520) are buggy as all hell. Cassette games don't load automatically, and each require a manual L, a "Play" from the cassette menu, and then a few minutes of listening to loading sounds.
EmuZ-XXXX emulators have great compatibility, and load cassettes at 10x speed, but don't seem to have a command line parser.
There is also an emulator called MZ-80B, but it's seemingly a bit of a mess (down to the way one must download it - the link is "broken", but you can still download the file if you fix the URL)

Another issue is with games that require a BASIC to be loaded. Under MAME it takes 2+ minutes to load just the basic itself, then another minute for the game, and I don't think there is any way to either script this or speed it up. This would've been  MZ-80B always boots in monitor mode, but can switch to basic instantly, but, seemingly, can only do it via a mouse-click, at which point it forgets what tape it was started with.

Anyone know a better way to do this?

EDIT: I think I might've found a way to get MAME working without the long load time and extra scripting! Well, at least for the MZ-700 games.

Though the MZ-700 core doesn't officially support save states, it DOES make them, and since I don't think MZ-700 has many multiload titles, one could simply dump a savestate right as the game loaded, then used that state file as the main ROM to boot from, except with a -state instead of a -cass. It's finicky though, since savestates don't save screen data, so best time to make them would be right as the game screen is about to fully refresh.

Edited by darkfalzx
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